China's Internet Addiction Clinic

An anonymous reader writes "China has decided that if you are spending too much time online, you must be an addict. They've just opened a clinic to treat these internet addicts. Scarier is the head gear they have one patient hooked up to, and the fact that they think that this is some sort of epidemic and will shortly be expanding and adding 200 more beds to their clinics. In my opinion, the internet is way better and safer than alcohol and drugs any day. " We also covered this story last july.

Comments

Internet addictions always safer?

[vorpal22]

In my opinion, the internet is way better and safer than alcohol and drugs any day.

I dunno about you, dude, but I've know people who have spend hours and hours of their time online because of their net addiction, often going to bed at 4:00 AM because they're so busy IMing. I've had friends fail out of school and lose their jobs because of this. I've never had a friend of mine lose their job because they smoked pot; even the most pot-addicted of them (and trust me, I know a few) are reasonably functional, and probably healthier than those people who stay up until 4:00 eating junk food and then getting little sleep and complaining about their "insomnia".

It's a bigger problem in Japan

[Animats]

This is an even bigger problem in Japan, which is rich enough to afford young people idle for years.

The lack of social contact and prolonged solitude has a profound effect on the mentality of the hikikomori, who gradually lose their social skills and the necessary social references and mores of the outside world. Anguished about their isolation and acutely self aware of their problem, they immerse themselves into the fantasy worlds of manga, television or computer games, which in turn becomes their only frame of reference. As time passes, the hikikomori, lacking interpersonal stimulus, developmentally stagnates into routine behaviors of sleeping all day and staying up all night only to sneak out into the kitchen for food when the family is asleep. Eventually, hikikomori may abandon their diversions of books and TV and simply stare into space for hours at a time. -- Wikipedia, "hikikomori"

It's such a big problem in Japan that the birth rate has dropped substantially.

Re:Depends on your Definition of Safer

[operagost]

Addiction [wikipedia.org] that stems from the mind, and not drugs, is a real thing. I had a college professor who was addicted to running and the "high" it gave him.

That addiction also stems from drugs, as prolonged exertion causes the body to release endorphins, mild pain-killers.

Re:scary nurses

[Ignignot]

Actually the picture's title says that it is an EEG. I don't understand why they use so much surgical tubing, but the same sort of thing is used all over the world to examine brain activity.